2023 Fall Schedule
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State men's golf team, under the direction of first-year head coach Mark Leon, is set to compete in five tournaments during the fall portion of the 2023-24 season beginning in early September.
The first competition of Leon's tenure as the leader of the Nittany Lions comes on Sunday-Tuesday, Sept. 3-5, at the Marquette Intercollegiate at Erin Hills in Erin, Wis. The course has hosted numerous championship events including the 2017 U.S. Open and is rated as a Golf Digest top-10 public course in the United States. With a mix of traditional and modern elements, Erin Hills is routed over the kettle moraine areas left by glaciers, surrounded by wetlands and a river, with ground that consists of glacial till of varied composition of sand and small rock. The Nittany Lions will compete in the three-day event hosted by Marquette to open the 2023 slate.
The Nittany Lions then return to action two weeks later at the Chicago Highlands Invitational hosted by Wake Forest on Monday-Tuesday, Sept. 18-19. The Chicago Highlands golf course in Westchester, Ill. was designed by world-renowned architect, Arthur Hills, and features elevation changes of over 80 feet, dramatic views of the Chicago skyline, and a style that resembles that of a modernized links course in Scotland.
Penn State returns to a familiar location a week later on Sunday-Monday, Sept. 24-25, when the Nittany Lions travel to Duke to compete in the Rod Myers Invitational for the sixth time in the last seven years. The tournament is named for the longtime Duke men's golf coach who lost his battle with leukemia in 2007. Penn State won the event in the fall of 2018.
The Nittany Lions will then return to action two weeks later on Sunday-Tuesday, Oct. 8-10, at the Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate in Johnson City, Tenn. The event, hosted by East Tennessee State University, has been a staple of Penn State's fall schedule in years past, with the Nittany Lions capturing the championship in 2015 and again in 2017. Three of the program's top 10 individual low round scores were achieved at the Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate with a 54-hole tournament team score tied for the second-best mark all-time.
Penn State wraps up its fall slate on Sunday-Monday, Oct. 15-16, at the Quail Valley Collegiate hosted by Michigan State in Vero Beach, Fla. The event is played at the Quail Valley Golf Club, a course that has played host to a number of USGA and FSGA Championships.
Penn State returns its entire roster from a season ago and adds two freshmen to the mix in the first season under head coach Mark Leon. A Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) All-American, GCAA All-Region and All-Big Ten selection as a Penn State student-athlete from 2001-05, Leon returns to his alma after serving as the head coach at Florida Atlantic for the last two seasons.
